Virgie's Bar-B-Que

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Even if the plates are paper and the silverware is plastic, hefty ribs, zippy pork links and melting brisket are worth a visit to Virgie's.

Even if the plates are paper and the silverware is plastic, hefty ribs, zippy pork links and melting brisket are worth a visit to Virgie's.

Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle

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A sliced beef sandwich is dressed with onion, pickles and sauce.

A sliced beef sandwich is dressed with onion, pickles and sauce.

Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle

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Adrian Handsborough stands next to the can't-miss symbol of Virgie's Bar-B-Que.

Adrian Handsborough stands next to the can't-miss symbol of Virgie's Bar-B-Que.

Photo: NICK De La TORRE, CHRONICLE

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Lemon bundt cake is also on the menu.

Lemon bundt cake is also on the menu.

Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle

Virgie's Bar-B-Que

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I have a special fondness for restaurants that force me out of my culinary comfort zone, winning me over despite my natural inclinations.

Virgie's Bar-B-Que on Houston's northwest side is my favorite recent example of this phenomenon, and it's an establishment that any local lover of wood-smoked meats should put on his or her itinerary.

Virgie's deals in a sweet, East Texas-style barbecue meal that does not really suit my palate. The meats are savory -- and then some -- but the sauce is sweet and so are the sides, from the mashed-potato salad to the beans and slaw. So inevitably I start feeling as if I am eating one long, drawn-out dessert. Ordinarily that's a deal-killer.

Virgie's flouts that presumption of mine with its majestic meats. Potato salad? Piffle. Can't be bothered worrying about it here. Virgie's could serve me a salad of dried squid and molasses and I would probably shrug and get on with eating my barbecue. I might even decide that, given the delightful surroundings and 'cue-induced euphoria, dried squid with molasses wasn't too bad.

Pit master Adrian Handsborough used to be a truck driver. Thank heavens he took up the work the universe clearly intended for him: smoking hefty ribs, zippy pork links and melting brisket over a fire of pecan and oak. He's got the elusive gift that turns a barbecue pit master from artisan to artist.

At first bite of Handsborough's meaty, smoked-to-the-bone ribs, I swear I can feel my eyeballs rolling back in my head. I'm glad nobody has this on film; it would scare little children and vegetarians. It's like somebody flipped some primal switch in my head, turning me into a dogged gnawer who scorns the puny plastic forks Virgie's supplies, even when I turn my attention to the sliced links and brisket.

Plastic utensils? Can't be bothered. Just pass the Wonder Bread and a roll of paper towels.

There are no proper plates at this otherwise supremely proper little spot, either. Everything is served in Styrofoam clamshells, the better to take the order away. But I always enjoy sitting in the narrow dining room Handsborough has fashioned the hard, do-it-yourself way, out of his mom's longtime hamburger joint and grocery store, then as now a landmark on this half-rural stretch of Gessner. Mother Handsborough is the Virgie of the eatery's name. Her legacy sits about a mile south of Highway 290, on the west side of the street. Just look for the pig in the jaunty blue neckerchief.

I like the carefully chosen Western memorabilia that punctuates the plainspoken walls, from an ancient bridle to the Lone Star motif on the door lintels. The cowboy motif is a happy reminder of how blended the cultures and food styles in this state have become.

Virgie's is not one of those smoke-grimed, atmospheric barbecue joints that beguiles you with its giddy aromas and been-there-forever funk. It is neat as a pin, with a bit of churchy starch I find mightily endearing.

On the wall near the entry is a black-and-white photo portrait of Virgie herself, sporting a white hat that seems made for Sundays. On the wall over the cash register, a sign cautions patrons that this is a Christian establishment and that a sensible laundry list of sins — including threatening behavior and alcohol — have no place here. For folks who don't quite get the point, a Holy Bible is propped nearby.

Presiding over this domain is Handsborough himself, a sunny presence whose demeanor makes his food taste even better. Barbecue joints can be cranky places, inhospitable to newbies who don't know the drill or who hesitate a moment too long when ordering. Not Virgie's. Handsborough sees to that, greeting newcomers, thanking people for coming in, superintending the several employees he has hired at his 3-year-old business since I first visited seven months ago.

He's a little bit famous now. The current issue of Texas Monthly sits on his counter, thumb-worn at the spot where Virgie's is listed as one of only two Houston spots to make the magazine's list of Texas's top 50 barbecue places. (The other is the estimable Burns Bar-b-que in Acres Homes.)

To understand the rightness of this honor, all you have to do is taste Handsborough's brisket, with its stout smoke ring of rose and its meltaway texture. It is, in my opinion, exactly what barbecued brisket ought to be, minus a little bit of the crustiness that I long for and which is hard to maintain when the meat is warmed up for service (be it ever so briefly) in a microwave.

But wow, is it good: devoured straight, in delicious, fat-rimmed slices or layered onto a sliced-beef sandwich about 5 inches high or even dipped cautiously into that sweet-tart barbecue sauce with its industrially processed smoke component.

It is a continuing puzzlement to me that such maestros of natural-wood smoking as Handsborough and Roy Burns countenance fake smoke flavoring in their sauce. To me, it detracts from the purity and integrity of their pit-smoked meats. But obviously the use of artificial smoke in barbecue sauce has become traditional in the last decade or so. Even the late, great Williams Smokehouse used the stuff. I don't guess I'll ever quit complaining about it.

Or, for that matter, about the tyranny of sweet barbecue side dishes. I just naturally tilt toward the salty and tart, not to mention the umami values of a potful of meaty beans. But Virgie's has other ideas. I have been known to consume an entire portion of the sweetish mashed-potato salad in spite of myself; ditto the sweet baked beans, tiny ones that are like itty-bitty navy beans rather than the ranch-style pintos favored in many Texas barbecue joints. And the minced coleslaw, while also endowed with sugar, has a sharp twinge of horseradish, a clever idea I may use myself.

But I carp. Just give me a Barq's root beer from the refrigerator case and a $10.99 three-meat platter and watch me make a complete, messy fool of myself. I love the three-meat option because it includes the rough-textured, red-peppery link sausages, which have the kind of casing that stretches and snaps between your teeth. Very satisfying.

By the way, you can get these sliced links layered onto chopped brisket as a combo sandwich, and it is yummy indeed. My only quibble: They don't include quite enough mild raw-onion rings in the little paper packet that also contains pickles. If only there were serve-yourself condiment vats.

The barbecue-stuffed potatoes here are worthy of remark, since one $7.99 portion, topped with chopped brisket and assorted fixings, could feed a family of three. Well, almost. It's three long potato halves embellished with everything that's bad for you, lord love it. Even with sweet-tilted, fake-smokey barbecue sauce, these potatoes can get under your skin.

Pretty much the way Virgie's has gotten under mine. Some place, I feel sure, Virgie Handsborough is smiling.